


Empty Spaces Between Stars

by Gammarad



Series: Empty Spaces Between Stars [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, Mutual Pining, Rakata Technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-07-11 20:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: Tatooine is a terrible place. It's also where Lord Kallig meets Andronikos Revel, a former pirate who quickly shifts from a useful informant to a valued ally.When they're fighting alongside one another, they understand each other intuitively and perfectly. The rest of the time, it's more like theymisunderstand each other perfectly.They have a lot of important things to do and people to kill. That's a good distraction from not being able to have what they really want.





	1. The Ghosts of the Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asymptotical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical/gifts).



> Everything before the beginning of this story is the same as in canon. As the story begins, so does the divergence.
> 
> The title _Empty Spaces Between Stars_ comes from the poem _Desert Places_ by Robert Frost

The Siltshift cantina was nearly deserted in the hours that preceded the hot Tatooine noon. The Rodian owner and bartender was probably not expecting a visit from a Sith Lord and his monstrous companion to inquire about a patron with a bad local reputation.

Not familiar with the species' facial expressions, Kallig only knew how afraid the Rodian was through his Sith ability to sense emotions via the Force. Fear, anger and passion were all easy for him to perceive in any living being. Wearing his hooded black Sith robes, with Khem Val at his side, he sensed fear often. "No one by that name or description, Lord," the Rodian said. "If you'd care for a drink? We have the finest--"

Kallig stopped him with a gesture. Intimidation might bring the information he required, or it might bring a lie the Rodian thought he wanted to hear. He had a different plan. "When I return," he said instead, "see that you have the information I need." He left the threat unstated. Anyone as fearful as the Rodian would understand it implicitly. 

The Sith inquisitor walked back toward his ship along the dusty streets of the city of Mos Ila on Tatooine, his Dashade following close behind. A pile of ronto dung lay in his path. Stepping into the street to avoid it, he felt the hot exhaust from a swoop bike passing too close ruffling the hem of his robe.

With a wave of the Sith's hand, the swoop bike veered into a stall selling ripe mottled fruit from overfilled baskets resting on cloth-covered boards. The rider tangled himself in fruit and cloth and half-collapsed displays, struggling to get free of them and making a mess in the process. The old Gran fellow who the fruit stand belonged to protested, yelling in a high voice. The swoop rider swore back at him. 

Kallig was cheered by the chaos he'd created, speeding his steps toward his intended destination. 

He would leave Khem Val aboard the Fury and return that evening to the same cantina. His contact at the spaceport had said the man he sought frequented the place; he thought it likely he would find him, or someone who knew him. If they were less afraid, they might be likelier to talk. He didn't let himself consider that he wanted a break from being a Sith Lord, feared by all. That would be weakness and not to be tolerated -- likely to get a Sith killed, or worse.

Kallig knew he could have threatened the bartender. Could have used the Force on him, tortured the information out of him, come back and done it again if it was a lie. He could have bribed or cajoled him, if he had wanted to endure the Dashade's censure. This was a better way. He looked in a mirror as he carefully removed his facial jewelry, then applied new patterns in black to his silvery skin. He looked different enough that he thought he would not be recognized by most. 

He put on civilian clothes and headed back to the cantina, finding himself enjoying the walk through the cool evening much more than he had the same trip in the heat of the day. It was colder at night here than Korriban had been, even if the days were just as hot and overbearing. 

Kallig sat down at the bar. There were two additional bartenders now that it was busy; the one who took his drink order was a human woman, her hair bound up tightly in a filigree net, who poured drinks quickly and efficiently. She took his credits and, when her fingers touched his as she did so, he felt no fear at all, no passion, nothing. Not letting the relief show on his face, he sipped his liquor as he scanned the area. No one looked like his target. 

Several bar patrons mentioned rumors about a new Sith being in town. From the description, they were talking about him, but not one of them seemed to realize he was the Sith they were gossiping about. There was something enjoyable about the anonymity, about blending into a crowd like this. Kallig felt himself relaxing as he drank and ordered refills and felt the ebb and flow of emotions around him as the workers and petty criminals of Tatooine enjoyed their evening.

An hour and quite a few drinks later, Kallig spotted the dark-skinned human with the crescent face marking that his master, Zash, had showed him. No mistake, that was Andronikos Revel. Anger crackled off the man, enough to power a Sith to heights Kallig had yet to reach. Not a bit of it showed on Revel's face, which had a mild expression of enjoyment instead. He spoke to the Rodian who interrupted his mixing of a drink to pour Revel a tall glass of something purple, and slide it over to him. Revel took it to a table and sat with his back to the wall. 

He'd found his quarry. Kallig finished his liquor and walked over to Revel's table, sitting across from him with his back to the main part of the cantina. If anyone approached him from behind, Kallig felt sure he would know. It wasn't necessary for a Sith to have his eyes pointed in that direction to be watching his back.

"I wasn't looking for company, kid." Revel made a dismissive motion with his hand.

"I've been looking for you, Revel," Kallig said.

The anger flared. There was motion under the table at Revel's side, and he said, low, "I've got a blaster pistol pointed at you under there. Move away and don't get yourself killed at a cheap cantina. There are better ways to go."

"I'm not here to threaten or kill you," Kallig said. He left it unsaid that Revel might threaten, but would not kill him. A single blaster would be no issue for him, and no one else here meant him harm, not yet. "I have a proposal. A mutually beneficial one. If there's somewhere we can discuss it privately?" He smiled thinly. "You may keep your blaster. I am unarmed." Kallig had his lightsaber. He didn't think he would need to use it.

Another emotion flared, not anger exactly. Something made of anger and passion mixed. "You've got guts, kid. All right." He sipped the purple liquid from the still full tumbler, and left the rest of it on the table when he stood up. 

Revel led Kallig upstairs to the private areas of the cantina. There was a sort of room, with a bench seat and a curtain, and he went in. 

Kallig ducked to pass through the curtain and, standing, found his face close to Revel's. He thought for a moment's startlement that the pirate was going to kiss him. Instead, Revel wrinkled his nose and stepped back to a more conversational distance. "You've had a few too many," he pronounced. "Liquid courage?"

"I'm not drunk and my proposal isn't," he paused and then continued, "intimate. Revel, we have a mutual interest in a man called Wilkes who works for the Exchange. He stole an artifact from you that my Master requires."

"Your master?" Revel's eyes flickered across Kallig's throat. He was clearly looking for a collar. He saw scars where one had been, but wasn't anymore. He looked back up into Kallig's eyes. "There's a curse on it. Dangerous."

"Yes. I was told you want revenge on Wilkes, that you've been here on Tatooine trying to get at him for weeks. I'll help you and in return, I get the artifact." That summed it up nicely. Revel seemed intelligent, so Kallig thought he'd agree. 

"What makes you think you can take on the Exchange?" Revel was blunt, too, apparently. 

Kallig glanced at the curtain. They were private enough. He let lightning crackle from one hand to the other, purple sparks flying. 

Revel's emotions surged, all of them. Anger, fear, passion, mixtures in all the shades of feeling Kallig could sense. "You're the Sith," he breathed. "No wonder. Your master -- you meant Darth Zash, then, Lord?" He left a question at the end. 

"Kallig." Folding the lightning into his hands until it disappeared, the disguised Sith winced. "Yes, that's right. You and she are acquainted." Kallig felt he was on less steady ground now. He did not know what the pirate thought of his Master. 

Whatever rapport there had been between them was gone. Revel was looking at a spot over Kallig's head instead of directly at his face.

"Lord Kallig, I agree to your proposal," Revel said, but by the set of his shoulders Kallig could see that the pirate wasn't completely sold, no matter what his words were. There was an edge to Revel's voice that Kallig couldn't identify. There were still too many roiling emotions for Kallig to sort out which one was coloring the pirate's tone or what he intended to convey with it.

But Kallig knew he didn't care for it, whatever it was. "Don't say it like that," he muttered, barely aloud. Aloud, he added, "Don't call me 'Lord.'"

Revel looked at him curiously. "I can't call a Sith Lord 'kid,' can I? Or plain 'Kallig' as though you were on my crew?" He shook his head. "What do you want from me, Sith?"

"That," Kallig said. "If you can't call me Kallig. You can call me 'Sith.'" He could see Revel stifling his laughter. 

"All right, Sith." Revel stood, checked outside the curtains, then returned to sit back down next to Kallig. Not as close as he had been, but not a distance that spoke of fear. The fear was there, mixed in with those other emotions, but the whole of it was settling down behind the anger, and even the anger was lessening. 

Kallig felt better. Whatever aspect of the pirate's reaction to his identity that had been bothering him was gone.

"Tatooine." Revel made the name of the planet into an obscenity. "Nothing goes to plan on this dungheap." Revel explained that he'd been working up a reputation for killing anyone who messed with him that he thought would get him recruited by the Exchange. He thought Wilkes had been the one to get in the way of that. But he had another old crew member in the Exchange... 

Revel was tight-lipped about his past, but he explained enough in a low voice that Kallig felt sure his Master had been right -- they would retrieve the artifact she needed with the help of this other former crew member, although it might be tricky. 

Kallig considered the situation and began to explain the plan.

"Before that, you ought to sober up, Sith." Revel put out a hand, almost as if to touch him, but pulled it away before his hand made contact. "You have a good act, but no way you fight at a hundred percent with what is it, eight, ten drinks in you?"

"Hmm." Kallig dismissed the concern about his inebriation with a wave. "I'm not drunk, but I agree we ought to get some battle practice together before we try Wilkes. I have some other duties to carry out here. Tomorrow morning, let's meet outside the cantina and you can accompany me. We're bound to get into it at some point." Tatooine was full of people eager to throw their lives away for something, the Sith thought. And if not, he could take Revel into the desert and find a beast to test their teamwork against.

\---

Andronikos Revel, ex-Republic navy officer turned pirate, currently between ships, had not expected to discover that the best fighting partner he'd ever have would be a Sith. He'd seen and been up close to Jedi fighting during his years on Republic warships, and expected flashing lightsabers and maybe some lightning, but what Kallig did was something else again. He didn't need blasters and barely used his lightsaber. Mostly it was lightning and energies, all kind of purple, the same shade as his favorite flavor -- the least awful of the flavors -- of the disgusting stuff that passed for juice on this planet.

They'd battled what seemed like a hundred of the Sons of Palawa, though it couldn't have quite been that many before the poor sods had realized they were outclassed and had no chance. A few of them had had blasters, and a few of those had known how to use them. At first Andronikos had taken cover in his usual way of fighting, sniping the ones who looked like they might get the drop on his Sith, but at some point he'd got his blood pumping hard enough that he'd stood right up and taken shot after shot with the crappy blasters that were all he'd been able to buy in the Tatooine bazaars and one of the Palawans had, or should have, landed a blaster bolt right to his chest. A weird purple force shield had been there first, though, and instead of fire right through his flesh, it'd felt like maybe a splash of hot soup, stinging and too warm for a moment, then chill, then it was gone as if nothing had happened. 

Two of them against almost a hundred, the Sith obviously the powerhouse of the two of them, yet Andronikos hadn't felt superfluous or even like the junior partner really. He'd felt like it was a partnership, the two of them just that good, making each other better than either would be alone. Weird to feel that way about anyone, weirder that it was a Sith. 

It was embarrassing to remember that he'd thought the young man who approached him was looking for a quick fumble in a dark corner of the cantina. That he'd thought he was a slave when he talked about his Master. That he'd called him "kid." Didn't seem to faze Kallig, though. He'd been mostly unflappable. Bothered more by his proper status, it seemed. Andronikos wondered about him, but thought it a terrible idea to ask. People got mad when you asked them personal questions. People died when Sith got mad.

\---

Kallig took the artifact the Jawa had recovered from the Czerka crash to the Imperial Reclamation Service office. The Jawa had been skittish, but their warnings about ghosts were plausible and chilling. He had felt something from the artifact that reminded him a little of the Dark Temple and all its lingering dead. More distant and impersonal and also stronger than those had been, as if it was a partial echo of a strong remnant of a powerful dead Sith, but different, alien. A Sith of a race he had never encountered, Kallig supposed. 

Captain Golah accepted it with gratitude. The Sith Lord Silthar who was in charge of the station decided to make an appearance at last, too. "So this is Zash's apprentice who she speaks of so highly," Silthar said. Both of them ignored Revel by Kallig's side.

Kallig wasn't sure how to answer. He disregarded the praise, or question, or whatever it was and spoke of business. "My associate, Andronikos Revel, and I found that Jawa had already looted the crashed Czerka ship. This artifact, they warned, is cursed. Take care. I sense power in it."

Silthar turned a warm gaze on the young officer who had appeared in the doorway as Kallig spoke. "Hale, just in time. Take this container down to Lieutenant Keighlah." He added in an aside to Kallig, "She knows how to properly handle dangerous artifacts." 

Golah nodded emphatically. "She is the expert," he said confidently. "Your find will be safe with us."

Kallig felt no fear from any of the Imperials, but a sharp stab of it from Revel. The pirate had no reason to trust Imperial bureaucracy, Kallig thought, and wondered if he was correct. They did seem to think highly of themselves, honestly, not as a pretense, but that didn't mean much.

"See that it is," he said finally. He spun and stalked out of the station, Revel following close behind.

\---

"You told them my name, Sith," Revel said. He was eager to get this over with. Going to see Casey would have to be fast. No time to reminisce, get the location of Wilkes and go take Wilkes out, that was the way. Don't give her time to think too hard about it. 

His Sith just gave him a look. One that was becoming familiar, that Revel had started to interpret as "so what?" without words. It was Lord Kallig's response to a lot of things Revel said. On the Fury, it was the Sith's answer to a lot of the Dashade's incomprehensible remarks, too. Revel was starting to pick up the strange language; he caught a word here and there now, but not enough to feel like he knew what the hulking monstrosity was saying. 

They walked in silence the rest of the way to Casey's hideout. The guards outside stopped them. Revel gave them his name in a low voice. As soon as she heard who it was, she told the guards to let them in.

"Right, we're on," Revel muttered. He couldn't feel his feet. Nervous energy coursed through him. This was the riskiest part of the whole plan. If he said the wrong thing like he always used to do with Casey Rix, then it'd be over. 

"It's really you," she said, first thing. She stared at him and, unbelievably, he thought she might cry. There was a suspicious glitter to her eyes. "I heard rumors, but I was sure if you'd made it to Tatooine you would have come straight to me."

"There is a man named Sylas Wilkes who I need to find," Kallig said, "immediately. There is no time to lose." Revel was impressed with the urgency the Sith put into his tone. He was a better actor than Revel had credited.

"The Sith needs the thing Wilkes stole from me," Revel said. "You remember, Casey."

One of the tears slipped down her cheek. "I remember. Wilkes is holed up in an Exchange safe house in the desert. I'll give you the coordinates." She stepped closer to Revel. He backed up, keeping the distance between them. "Nikky, it's not fair," she began.

"You left me to die just like the rest of them," he said harshly. "Don't talk about what's fair."

Her sharp intake of breath and backing away made him wonder what had changed until he noticed out of the corner of his eye the shift in Kallig's stance. It had been neutral; now it was threatening. "We have what we need from her," the Sith said in a flat tone. 

It was permission. Revel didn't take it. "Wilkes is our target." 

"I'll help," Casey offered. "I can call him, make sure he's there, make sure he doesn't go out for the next few hours." Revel wondered for a moment how she would do that, but it was clear enough by her actions. Her flirtatious tone as she talked Wilkes into waiting for her to come visit him in the next little while was almost unbearable. When she disconnected, her tone went from sweet to sour fast enough to cause whiplash. "That piece of Bantha dung. Stringing him along is worse than … " she stopped herself, looked from Revel to the Sith, and back to Revel. "If you kill him, I'll consider it a favor," she concluded. 

"He always said nice things about you," Revel countered.

Casey laughed. Revel could see her relax. "Rather have a guy who says true things than nice ones." 

"So would I," the Sith said unexpectedly. 

Looking at him, Casey's expression shifted minutely to one Revel recognized as her rethinking a plan. "Look me up again before you leave the planet, Nikky. I can … there's a lot you don't know, maybe you'd let me fill you in."

"Leave the past in the past, Casey," Revel told her. He didn't want to hear her excuses or how she'd ended up here with Wilkes. He half thought she was going to try to see if he'd take her back. He definitely didn't want to see her try that. It was never going to happen, but that didn't mean he wanted to have to say the words to her face.

Except, his rage building low in his gut, burning, maybe he did. Maybe he wanted to rub her face in it before he killed her, how even though they had broken things off, there had still been some friendship or at least alliance, so he'd thought, and she'd left him to die slow of starvation or suffocation as the air and food ran out, anyway. He wasn't worth wasting a blaster charge or a torpedo on, even. 

And maybe it was an act, like the act he'd just seen her put on for Wilkes. Maybe she hated him as much as he deserved after how he'd treated her when they'd been together, and she just wanted to make him think she wanted him back, so she could twist the knife by throwing it back in his face. She was capable of that, he knew very well. Nice people didn't survive as pirates, and Casey was a consummate survivor.

"No time for reunions," Kallig said harshly. "Wilkes has my master's artifact and we know where he is. Come, Revel." He strode out without waiting. 

Revel grimaced, threw Casey a glance and shook his head minutely, then followed the Sith without a word.

\----

Kallig's plan had been simple. He and Revel let themselves be captured and taken to Wilkes. It was almost fun to listen to Wilkes gloat about having captured Revel, about having taken his ship and his girl and all his possessions. He had to mean Casey, Kallig thought, and wondered whether it was a lie. 

The Exchange thought Revel was the more dangerous of the two of them, and had him bound accordingly. Revel's anger crackled around the pirate like a fire, one that Kallig kept himself warm by. He waited and feigned reluctance and fear, let them manhandle him and drag him forward until their target came into range, enjoying how he was being underestimated and the secret power an ambush for them that lay within him. 

At the opportune moment, Kallig freed his ally with a thought and called lightning down around them both. He hadn't brought a lightsaber, not wanting to give away the game too easily should Wilkes's crew prove minimally competent. He didn't need one. 

With another thought he tossed the pistols of one of the men to Revel and armed him. Kallig concentrated on the trash and let the pirate take on his former first mate by himself. He knew that meant a lot to the man. 

In the heat of a fight, he couldn't stop to question the impulse that led him to indulge what should be a mere ally of convenience so completely. But he did. Kallig wanted to give Revel whatever he desired, all the vengeance, all the --

Everything.

All Wilkes's associates were dead or unconscious, and Revel stood over Wilkes with his foot on the Exchange boss's neck, pistol pointed at his forehead. "Where are my blasters?" Revel said roughly.

"More importantly," Kallig said, not sure it was anything of the sort, "where is the artifact?"

"Both gone," Wilkes choked out. "Three days back, the men I set to guard them ran off with everything." 

"I don't believe you," Revel said flatly. He pressed the muzzle of the stolen blaster to Wilkes's forehead.

"I don't care," Wilkes said. "You'll never find what you want, believe me or don't. Let me live, please? I can pay--" That was his last word. Revel blasted the top of his head off and his anger begin to taper off, Kallig sensed, assuaged by revenge.

The pirate kicked the body over so it was face down, then looked at Kallig. "I believe him," he said. 

"I could feel the artifact if it were here." Kallig sensed nothing that could be a relic of the power of Tulak Hord. Now that all the emotions were subsiding and the safe house was no longer permeated with the fear and anger of Revel and the Exchange crew, it was perfectly clear to Sith senses that no item of such power remained nearby. Nothing of Tulak Hord's was in this place. 

He closed his eyes, reached out to find it. Faint traces showed him it had been here recently, and the general direction of its movement. "I can track it, I think," he said, but hesitantly. Its signal was strong here, where it had been for a long time, he thought. But he might lose the trail if they had gone too fast.

\--

The Sith was playing Corellian hound and sniffing out the thieves. Revel followed, impressed despite his nonchalance at how many different ways the Force served the strange man he'd taken up with. No usual Sith, this one, he seemed to enjoy shedding the trappings of his power. Revel tried not to notice he was also remarkably easy on the eyes. 

But when he tried not to think about what might have gone on if the Sith had kissed him in the Siltshift cantina after all, he ended up thinking about what he was going to do about Casey when they got back. Take her down and that would be all. He'd have got every one of the lousy double-crossers who left him to die. He'd be able to move on. Andronikos wasn't sure he was ready. Revenge had been his guide star for a long time now. What was he going to do with himself when it was over? 

That made his thoughts circle back to the Sith. "You're the only Sith who doesn't like the world sucking up to him," he said as they walked through the sands toward where Kallig said the thieves had fled. "Want to tell me what that's about?"

Kallig gave him a different look, not the dismissive one. "Everyone fears the power of the Sith," he said. 

"They do if they don't want to die." Revel flipped the blaster over that Kallig had taken from the Exchange tough and given to him. It was better than trash, but not as good as the ones Wilkes had stolen from him. It had already acquired a little sentimental value. Souvenir of his penultimate vengeance. And also a gift from his Sith.

"And what do the Sith fear?" Kallig had an amused note in his voice when he asked what was probably a trick question.

"Nothing." Movement out of the corner of his eye. Andronikos stopped flipping his blaster and aimed it at where he'd seen the movement. 

"Each other, Revel." The Sith motioned with his hand, and a womp rat flipped into the air, startled. It dropped to the sand and fled. "Fear is fine for a while, but I tire of the monotony of it. My Master does not inspire fear in other Sith, not much. She is charming. She's still as deadly as the rest. But she knows how to -- be otherwise. I have learned much from her teachings."

Revel remembered Lord Zash. She was no less terrifying than other Sith, he didn't think. But he knew what Kallig meant. Like Kallig, Zash was pretty, was almost nice sometimes for no apparent reason, was like a regular person instead of a boogeyman. "So that's it. You're being Zash Junior." He wasn't sure why he felt disappointed at this explanation. It made sense. It just didn't feel right.

"You'd been wondering about that for a while." Kallig sounded amused. "You know what I wonder?"

"What, Sith?"

"Why you didn't kill Casey Rix after she told us where to find Wilkes." There was an angled shadow coming closer. Out of the long evening shadows of the dunes, it stood out for its shape. 

As they passed over top of a dune in silence, Revel spotted a makeshift tent of sorts. Then, closer, he saw a body. Tooth marks on it made him think desert creatures had been by to scavenge, but found the man inedible. 

Another body lay half in, half out of the tent. Kallig held his hand up, then walked behind the tent and kept going. "Wait, Sith," Andronikos called. "I think these are the thieves." Kallig didn't seem to hear him, or if he heard, to care. There was a datapad on the ground. It had barely any charge left. Revel scooped it up and opened it to read as he walked on, following his Sith back into the desert.

The last body was a good long walk further on. The artifact was with it. "Here it is," Kallig said, his voice stuffy with some kind of feelings. He looked angry. 

Revel thought he could guess why. "They killed each other over it," he said, summarizing what he'd read on the datapad as they walked. "Got paranoid, decided the others were planning to kill them, all three it looks like."

"The artifact is cursed." Kallig glared. Revel thought maybe the Sith was going to kill him, he really did, maybe it was the curse talking. He was pretty sure he had no chance to kill the Sith first, that even if he tried, he'd be the one to die. He didn't feel any inclination to try, though. Maybe the curse didn't work on him. He hadn't felt like killing anyone when they first took the artifact either. Not any more than he usually did, anyway.

"Are you getting angry because of the curse, or is it because you didn't get to kill the guys who stole it?" Revel wondered out loud. "I mean here they are dead and you can't do anything to them at all. I'd be angry."

"They suffered enough." Kallig visibly shed his fury. He was a tiny amount less attractive when he wasn't angry. Infinitesimal. "Is that why you didn't kill Rix? You wanted to make her suffer, and there wasn't time?"

Was that what the Sith wanted to believe? It would be good for his reputation for people to believe that. Not the truth. But he wanted his Sith to know the truth. "Fact is I wasn't sure she deserved to die for it. I'm thinking not."

"Because she helped us?"

"I don't think Casey made the decision. That was Wilkes and the others. She just didn't lift a finger to stop them or help me. They might have turned against her too, it was her life on the line. And I hadn't earned from her that she would risk it for me, I don't figure." Revel snorted. "The opposite, more like."

"I thought you and she, hmmm. It sounded like you were married or something."

"Not quite. It was great at first, her and me. Then it wasn't. Then it was bad, a while before the mutiny. I don't think she felt much like saving me from anything."

Kallig didn't say anything, but there was a skeptical look in his eye. "You still love her."

"Nah. Don't think I ever _loved_ her, Sith. We had fun. We had each other's backs. We made each other miserable and, huh. Maybe that was because she loved me. Hurts when it goes like that." Revel wasn't sure he had love in him. He was not that kind of man. Hadn't loved his father, that piece of work. Maybe he'd loved Nash, the guy who'd rescued him from … sentimentality, that's what that line of thought was. Andronikos stopped it cold. He'd been grateful to Nash, as was right. 

"If you aren't going to kill her, you should tell her. Unless you want her to suffer, fearing your return one day to do it." By his tone, Kallig didn't seem to mind either option. 

\---

On the way to drop off the cursed Tulak Hord artifact that Wilkes and his men had all died of, one way and another, Revel figured they would do what the Sith had suggested and let Casey know she was off the hook as far as he was concerned. 

She stared at him when he'd finished saying his piece. "I wasn't going to tell you this, Nikky, because it would've sounded like an excuse." Casey stopped, then seemed like she was forcing herself to go on despite thinking maybe she shouldn't. "When the mutiny -- Wilkes sent me to finish you off. He said it'd be a mercy. That I was the only one who cared enough to do it.

"I didn't." She glanced over at Kallig before turning back to Revel, looking like she was going to cry _again._ Revel didn't remember her being so prone to tearing up and wasn't sure how to take it. "I set a distress beacon for you instead. Then I made sure Wilkes didn't get the signal from it."

"Not going to thank you," Revel said, "but still not going to kill you. It's over, we're quits." He thought about telling her to have a good life, but he didn't think it would sound quite right. "Show the Exchange how it's done," he ended up with instead. 

Without a glance back, he and Kallig headed to Golah's bunker to give the cursed artifact to the Imperial Reclamation Service to send on to Zash. 

Kallig was busy having a private Sith chat with Silthar, and Revel got restless. He went down a level to where Lieutenant Keighlah was busy examining the artifact the Sith had brought in earlier, the one the Jawas had found. She pressed the right controls and the container opened. She was explaining what she saw into her datapad when something weird happened to her face. It was creepy. Her voice changed, and she reached toward Hale. She hadn't even touched him when the strange transformation happened to the young guard too.

Revel had enough time to realize they had been turned into some kind of cyber-zombie when Keighlah reached for him. The last thing he remembered for a while -- the last thing that made any sense, at least -- was trying to back away as her hand moved closer as if in slow motion toward his shoulder.

_A long interlude of spinning wheels and angular mazes with Revel's mind wandering between the lines and whirling in place until he had no idea what up was anymore. He was an extension of a mind so alien it curled into the corners of his senses there was no more Andronikos he was the Imprisoned One --_

_\-- it lasted for no time at all and for thousands of local days the planet turning faster than the blink of a blind eye, he struggled and he did not try to escape because he saw no exit to this labyrinth the Rakata words echoed in his mind and he had no sense of their meaning though they were a din drowning out all other words--_

_\-- deep down he knew he was going to die without ever being himself again, he would drown forever in incomprehensible regiments battering against a prison he could not see or touch but felt within his mind distress anguish purpose chaos emptiness--_

_\-- his hands his fingers fought and died against a darkness sharp and new and young, the scraps of merely human memories knew this darkness well and struggled against the need to destroy it and hoped beyond hope that it would survive as each of his army fell to its blade of light--_

_\-- the Imprisoned One's triumph and the human memories' despair as he took over this new body not just a hand but a whole arm the strong dark power within, the first resistance in millennia that might succeed, despair and triumph changing places as the Imprisoned One sensed for the first time his own fall was possible--_

_\--a battle in a bright void between one who existed almost eternally and one who was a dark blot new fallen in the pristine emptiness of the place that was not a place, the blot driving out the immortal mad voice and he was free--_

The first thing Andronikos noticed was that he had a hell of a hangover. He was thirsty and starving and exhausted but he was himself again by some miracle. _The Sith_ he thought with a rush of warmth, sure Kallig had been the one to rescue him from some nightmare, though he could not clearly remember why. Keighlah and Hale stared at each other and at Revel and couldn't speak at first. They were locked in a row of makeshift cells someone had made out of portable force-barriers in the same room where Keighlah just now -- or timelessly long ago -- had uncrated the Rakata artifact and it had powered itself on.

"Hey, Golah!" Revel tried to shout, his voice cracking from disuse. He barely managed a wordless croak. 

No one came. He sat quietly and tried not to remember the last time he'd felt like this, which had been when he was in Imperial prison before Darth Zash had decided he would be of use to her. Revel tried not to think about why he was hungry and dehydrated and all his muscles ached, or about the hideous blankness of whatever had been happening to him for the last, he was going to guess based on how long it felt like it had been since he had anything in his stomach, three days. 

Finally when someone showed up it was not Captain Golah; it was his Sith and the old Sith and his Sith's pet monster. Kallig took one look at Revel and the others and did some sort of Sithy thing and Revel felt much better. 

Silthar looked even older than he had before, but his expression softened when he saw Hale was all right. 

Golah came down soon after, with bottles of water. It hurt to swallow, but Revel drank it all. He knew he needed it badly. "Ah, that's good."

"It worked," Kallig said, sounding as tired as he looked. "You're you again."

Revel looked at him sharply. "What did you do?"

"I couldn't let them kill you. I did what I had to." The Sith was wavering on his feet with exhaustion. Khem Val muttered something that Revel thought was a Dashade insult. Kallig turned to him. "No, what I did was better. Now Silthar has the artifact he wanted and that thing is no longer a threat to the galaxy. And the people who it took over are going to recover." 

It took a little while for the whole story to come out. In order to defeat this Rakata machine plague, as the Sith called the weird skin condition and mind control that the artifacts had infected people with, he had let it take him over and try to use him to enter the world. He'd fought it in its prison that looked like a blank white room, inside his mind. "It's still here," Kallig told Revel. "The Imprisoned One is gone, but the White Room stayed and it had the controls to shut the machine plague down."

The Sith had rescued him from something worse than dying of suffocation in space, worse than hundreds of blaster bolts too; had faced down what apparently was a remnant of a civilization from eons ago to save him. Revel didn't believe in love and he didn't believe in loyalty. He had no intention of finding himself bound by either.

He would, though, follow this Sith into fire and back out again.


	2. You Get What You Give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone made [animated fan art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228407) of this story and gave it to me for trick or treat 2019!
> 
> Thank you so much venndaai for the fan art which I love immensely! 💙💙💙💙💙

"A shame what happened to those mercenaries. Do you think you'll take their ship…"

"Sold it. Sent the credits to their families. It's all they'll get from them now." Revel looked grim. 

Kallig was beyond surprised. All Revel had wanted was to get his revenge on his old crew. Now he'd got it -- and got beyond needing it with Casey, even -- what was left for him on Tatooine, anyway? And instead of taking a ship that had fallen into his lap, an unasked-for gift from the universe that was usually so cruel, he what, he sold it? For charity, basically? This wasn't the pirate Kallig had been fighting alongside for the past weeks. This was someone he didn't know. "Revel… what will you do now, then? Is there something here … " Was there someone here? When could Revel have even met someone… had to be from before Kallig's arrival, he thought, not sure why he felt so cold suddenly. 

"Actually," Revel began, then paused. "You know, Sith, I thought maybe you'd give me a ride off this dry bone of a planet. You've got a ship and no crew. I feel like you could use a guy who knew his way around a bridge and an engine room."

The cold was replaced by a wash of heat. "Yes. I'm sure I could." He considered. "You wouldn't be a captain anymore. You're fine being under my command?"

"In the Empire, everyone's under a Sith's command, isn't that how it works?" Revel shrugged. He didn't seem unhappy about it. There wasn't any fear to speak of radiating from him, and less anger than usual, too. All his emotions Kallig could sense were tamped way down, covered over with the artifice of calm. For this particular situation, that seemed like a good sign to Kallig.

"Then, you're hired. Get your stuff. Meet me aboard." Kallig took a long hard look at the pirate's face. He felt a warm surge of passion in himself. He looked forward to having Revel's company in the future. He hadn't realized how much he'd expected to miss the man when he left Tatooine. It seemed like there was an answering, similar feeling from Revel, but it was hard to be sure when he felt it so strongly himself. His own emotions tended to drown out his ability to pinpoint the same ones in others nearby. 

Projection, it was called, he remembered from a very long ago lesson. Seeing in others what's truly in yourself. It had been a lesson he'd never completely mastered, but there had been little reason to, according to his more recent teachers. Zash herself did not believe it was important, and hadn't had any guidance for Kallig in his effort to improve his skill in that particular weak point. It was more important, she asserted, to know his own will and follow it. The will of others was secondary. Kallig tried sometimes to feel that way, but he had known too long what it was like to be one of those others, one of those whose will didn't matter to the people with power. As a slave through his pre-adolescence and youth, there had been enough such situations to burn from him forever any comfort with overriding another's will.

And yet no comfort did not mean no impulse. Wanting to be sure never to do something didn't mean never feeling an urge to do it anyway. Kallig's own fears were a source of power for him, his anger and passion were too, and he knew a violation of his own will was a shortcut path to a massive influx of such emotions and therefore power. The temptation was always there.

There were other, cleaner ways to the power engendered by passion, anger and fear. He sought those instead.

Kallig had a bottle of the liquor he'd been drinking in the Siltshift cantina in his stateroom on the Fury. It was sitting out on the sideboard, still unopened. He was talking to the ship droid when Revel came aboard, explaining to the droid that the pirate was now a crew member and orders from him should be accepted as such. "I won't put you out too far, droid," Revel said amiably as he walked by. He looked into the stateroom. "This one looks occupied already." 

"It's mine," Kallig said. "There's one for you over here." He showed Revel where to stow his things. The room had three bunks, but none were occupied. The only crew member Kallig had was Khem Val, and he didn't use a bunk. The Dashade slept standing in one of the storage areas, usually. His own choice that Kallig hadn't attempted to talk him out of.

"This works. All right, Sith. Give me the rest of the tour," Revel said after he'd put his small cargo carrier's contents into storage in the bunk room and a secondary crew storage unit which also had room for the carrier unit itself. 

Kallig showed the ex-pirate the engine room, where they encountered Khem Val, who kept silent. He had not been exactly pleased by Kallig's decision to hire Revel. He hadn't explained the issue he had, and Kallig hadn't really wanted to know enough to push it. The Dashade didn't like people, that was probably all it was. They left him behind and went to the bridge. 

In the cramped space at the top front of the Fury, Kallig felt that warmth again. It came when Revel was especially physically close to him. It reminded him of when they'd first spoken. "When you took me into that little room in the cantina, with the curtain, for a moment I'd thought you were going to kiss me," Kallig said, watching the star map instead of Revel's face, though he could see the man's reflection in the curved window displays anyway. 

"I was, but you smelled like the Rodian's cheap booze," Revel admitted. "Then you explained what you actually wanted, so it was lucky for both of us I didn't."

Yes, Kallig thought, a twist of anger in his gut making the lightning surge under his skin. He kept it in. _Lucky._ "But you were -- interested. Willing. Because you didn't know what I was."

"Look, Sith, yes. You're beautiful. Why wouldn't I?"

The passion flared, anger with it. Kallig lashed out before he could think. "I wouldn't want someone who wanted me because he liked how I look." 

"That's not -- what else did I know about you then? A lot more has happened since. I've seen you in action. There are plenty of other reasons by now." In the awkward cramped bridge, Revel found a way to slide closer to Kallig, put an arm around him. His head tilted and their lips met. 

Kallig felt so much passion as they kissed wrapping around him and through him that his head spun and he wasn't sure whose it was, Revel's or his own. He wasn't sure which of them wanted this and which was just along for the ride. It was dizzying. The field he used in battle to protect himself and allies, the skin tight caress of the living force, embraced them both like a third lover.

His eyes were dark and swimming with stars reflected from the projected map that took up half the space on the bridge. "Twenty minutes. Meet me in my cabin." 

\----------------

Revel sat down in one of the flight chairs when Kallig had left the bridge. He had hoped, when he invited himself to join the Fury's crew, that they would manage to get together, but he hadn't really expected it, certainly not so soon. 

Maybe it was too soon. Maybe the Sith would change his mind. Twenty minutes was barely time for a fresher and change. He'd seen a small one in the room he'd put his things in. Better get to it. 

Once clean and in softer, hopefully a little more flattering clothes, Revel checked out the doorway. He didn't see the droid or the Dashade. He really didn't want to look at either of them before he made it into Kallig's stateroom. 

The door slid open, Revel stepped inside, and it slid closed behind him. The Sith stepped out of his own fresher, naked but for his jewelry. Revel got a brief eyeful. 

The Sith's face was unmarked but for a slight, barely visible scar on the lower corner of his cheek. Revel had seen the neck scars that looked to be from a slave collar, that first night in Mos Ila at the cantina when the Sith had been wearing civilian clothes, but not since. His robes covered everything from the neck down. There were a lot more scars below the neck. Branding, whip scars, battle scars. He had thought, given the Sith's healing ability, that there would be -- fewer. Still attractive, though, the man's thin form covered with wiry muscle and an even soft layer of flesh over it that was -- promising. He felt flush, pulse beating in his ears. A soft look crossed the Sith's face for a moment as their eyes met. 

Revel broke the eye contact and looked to one side. His glance caught the bottle from the cantina, the same one a short time ago when he'd come aboard, it had been full. Now it held maybe half its contents. His eyes narrowed.

Ship captain, moving on a new crew member, drunker than any reason, this was too much like Andronikos had been with Casey when she first joined the Princess's crew. Look how messed up that had been. He felt a sudden wave of anger and revulsion, of shame at what he was doing. 

When he looked back at the Sith, the soft expression was gone. "Then get out," Kallig said, low and bleak, and waved his hand. 

Andronikos struck the door hard. It opened, and he slid backward, then was slammed into the deck plate. The door slid shut again and stayed that way. 

The ex-pirate lay on the deck and stared up at the lights. He had no idea what had just happened, but nothing good. 

\----------------

Moff Sarek was full of himself and Kallig felt exhausted just listening to the man. He half-tuned the words out. Something about rebel nobles, kill most of them and put slave collars on the rest, take them to the Imperial allies in House Thul. "Enough," Kallig said abruptly when he could no longer stand to listen. "Sith have our own ways of dealing with those who think they can flout our will without consequences." He formed his lips into a sneer. His hood shrouded his eyes, and he knew the expression would intimidate. 

Sarek stopped. "My lord, I leave it in your hands," he said abruptly and disconnected.

"Nobles," Revel said, sounding like the word tasted bad. "Won't mind shooting them."

Kallig had expected Revel to leave after the -- unpleasantness, but the ex-pirate had shown no signs of even admitting it had happened. He had decided to do the same. They were back to fighting together, still synchronizing perfectly, and that partnership none the worse. He didn't mind it being this way. 

Why would he?

He didn't understand why Revel stayed after such a thing happened. It seemed like the better he got to know Revel, the less he understood.

House Alde had a fancy museum. They were allies of House Organa, which was on the Republic's side, but they weren't about to deny a tour to a Sith Lord who claimed a keen interest in antiquities. Kallig knew what to say to them, the same sort of thing Golah and Silthar would have wanted to hear, and soon the curator, Peema Ahuff, was explaining each exhibit in more detail than Kallig wanted.

Revel was just out of earshot, having a quiet conversation with Ahuff's assistants Neva and Kaddreth. Neva was young and pretty; Kaddreth was middle-aged, slight, his hair and beard thinning. Kallig was ready to leave.

"Got the codes to get us that data, Sith," Revel said quietly when they were well outside the Alde grounds. "Disaffected, those two. Ahuff's not treating them right." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Might be a trap."

Kallig felt himself tense up. "What did you have to give them for the codes?"

"The girl wanted backup, later. Some deal with a sketchy client." Revel frowned. "Only offered to show up myself. Nothing you need to do."

That should be insignificant, or a relief. The tension he felt wasn't going away. 

The House Alde data banks were, as Revel had been told, accessible remotely with the codes he'd been given by the assistant curators. It seemed the Jedi they were looking for had once been engaged to a local noblewoman. One way or another, Rehanna Rist would know something they could use to get Nomar Organa to show himself. And once they had the Jedi, he would give them the artifact Kallig's master required. So there was nothing Kallig should worry about, especially not Revel and the assistant curator.

\----------------

It had been a mistake of the usual sort Revel made when he tried to get close to someone. He would soon enough see how big a mistake, but Andronikos was sure that one, he should have known better, and two, he wasn't anywhere near done paying for it. He had to find a way out of the trap he might have put himself in. 

Alderaan was the worst place they could have ended up as far as that went. Way too high class for his kind of people to be easy to find. Nobles everywhere, the sort of folks he didn't understand and didn't want to. 

Neva, the young assistant curator, was the type of girl he was instantly familiar with. Up to something, in a relationship with a guy she didn't trust who had her doing something she knew she shouldn't be doing. The kind of girl who was drawn to Andronikos like -- he stopped himself there. 

This scheme she had was typical of a naive girl who'd never been off her home planet. "Get his money before you do his favor," he'd told her, "or you'll never see it." She'd actually believed the guy was into her. 

Maybe he was -- but Andronikos didn't think that mattered to guys like that. He was himself a guy like that, so he should know. He met Neva at a cantina right outside the Organa spaceport, only a fraction on edge around the Republic troopers there having an off-duty drink. They had no way to know he was a deserter from their ranks. Or that he worked with a Sith now, for however long that didn't blow up in his face. 

The guy who had made the deal with Neva was called Skavak. He was late. "Maybe we should get drinks," Neva said. 

"Don't go into a situation like this with your edge blunt," Revel told her.

"Then maybe we should act like we're on a date," Neva said, sliding her chair closer to his. She put her hand on his arm.

A pretty girl making a pass at him should have been pleasant, maybe even tempting. It wasn't either. His mouth filled with bad-tasting saliva and he wanted to spit on the floor, but this was Alderaan and even the low class cantinas weren't places where that was done. He swallowed it instead, more difficult than it should have been.

Something about his expression must have warned her off because she took her hand back. "Sorry," she said, fidgeting with the fringe on her sleeve.

By the time Skavak came in, they were doing a good impression of a very bad date. "Is this guy bothering you, sweetheart?" was the first thing he said to Neva.

"I need full payment up front," Neva said. "Then, if you mean it about getting me out of here, I'll give half back when we leave. For passage."

"Sweetheart," Skavak protested.

"Or maybe you don't want that hyperdrive badly enough," Andronikos said.

Skavak glared at him. "Fine," he said, producing the payment. 

Neva counted it, then put it away. She smiled brightly at Skavak. "Let me use a little of it to take you out," she suggested warmly. 

"You two have fun," Revel said, standing. "Let me know if he gives you any trouble. 'Sweetheart.'" He smirked at the final word and left without looking back.

\----------------

Kallig and Revel had followed Rehanna Rist to the cave system where she had set the rendezvous with Nomar Organa. 

"I don't know what I'm going to say to him," the noblewoman of the Alderaanian house of assassins was saying. 

Kallig was sure he didn't have any advice. He had no clue what you said to a person you had feelings for but who didn't return them or at least acted like he didn't, even if the feelings were sometimes clearly there, unless it was more projection. 

"Tell him the truth," Revel said. 

That was terrible advice. Kallig cleared his throat. "Tell him you've missed him."

Lady Rist sniffed and half-smiled at them both. "I don't know what I'm going to say to him. But I'm sure I'll think of something."

Nomar Organa was surprised and suspicious to see a Sith there with his former fiancee, but she did think of something to say and managed to talk him around. At least, she thought she had.

Revel was scoffing at the sentimentality of the moment with an occasional audible sigh. When he glanced back at Revel, Kallig caught a smirk on his face. There was fear and anger from the ex-pirate, too, which he could only imagine was because Organa was a Jedi.

From the Jedi, Kallig sensed some lingering passion for Rehanna Rist, but he could also sense that Nomar Organa was afraid and angry. The anger grew and the fear subsided as Kallig held himself peacefully and only made encouraging remarks about the rekindling of romance. This made him suspicious. A Jedi giving in to lust so readily was probably some sort of trap. 

He knew it for certain when Nomar Organa offered him the key to Elysium to retrieve the artifact he needed. That would be a perfect place to set an ambush and the Jedi would be able to bring friends to outnumber him.

Heading this eventuality off was simple enough. Instead of taking the key from the Jedi's outstretched hand, Kallig blasted him with lightning, then in the split second the stunning force was keeping him from reacting, pulled out his lightsaber and cut the hand off. He picked up the key as Nomar Organa slumped to the ground. 

Rehanna Rist shrieked, and Revel immobilized her. "Be quiet and tend to your lover," Kallig said harshly. "Keep him in your house, I warn you, and don't let him contact the other Jedi until I have left Alderaan. If I see him again, I will have to kill him. But for now--" He stopped and let a wash of healing energy flow from him over the fallen man. "If you tend to him, he will survive."

Revel released Lady Rist. "Don't try anything," he warned her. 

"Why?" she asked. 

Kallig didn't need to answer. He didn't intend to. "I wanted the two of you to have a chance," he said, not sure why the words came out that way. 

He didn't think she understood what he meant any better than he did. Her anger and fear were filling the cave. Kallig kept alert for her to call her assassins or set some other ambush, but she did not. She had seen how quickly they fell to him earlier. He appreciated that she did not waste any more of their lives.

\----------------

In the interim between leaving Alderaan and arriving on Voss, a period in which there had been interesting and deadly adventures on Taris, Hoth, and numerous other worlds, Revel had become resigned to the knowledge that while he served his Sith, there wouldn't be anyone else he wanted to be close to. 

But given how things stood, he didn't dare make a move. What with ghosts in his head and all, Kallig was ever less predictable. If his Sith got mad and killed him, they'd both regret it. Better to be frustrated than fried.

Revel and the rest of Kallig's crew were looking after their recuperating Inquisitor. Talos and Ashara had been on shift all day and needed a break. The mystics said it would be three more days before Kallig recovered his powers. Thus far he had barely been awake long enough to eat, according to what Talos told Revel earlier that morning. 

The night before, Revel had sat watching his Sith sleep, nodding off himself a few times in the too-comfortable chair the Voss had placed in the room when they set it up. Kallig hadn't woken at all for the eight hours. 

There had been a lot of time to think in those eight hours. Not all comfortable thoughts. Plenty of regrets, of things he wished had happened differently than they had. But one thing he'd never regretted was staying with the Sith. He needed to be here, keeping Kallig safe. If sometimes it hurt to be so close and not allowed to touch, he couldn't let it matter.

This time, Talos had been out the door all of a minute when Kallig's eyes opened. The pale grey of his un-Sith-like eyes startled all thoughts out of Revel's mind with the realization that the Sith had been awake and listening to all the medical nonsense Talos had been spouting. 

"Welcome back," Revel said.

The Sith's lips moved shaping Revel's name, but no sound. 

"I'm here, Sith." 

Kallig tried to say something Revel couldn't make out from his not-great skill at lip reading. He heard it, too faintly to interpret. The Sith's hands moved under the coverlet, grasping, a bare flicker of energy in them, that pinprick of static shock all he could muster of the Force at this stage of recovery. 

Revel leaned closer to try to hear. Kallig lifted his head and their lips touched. It wasn't the Force making that brief contact feel electric before the Sith's head fell back onto his pillow. Andronikos froze, bent over his Sith face to face, inches away. This time he could make out the words. 

"Why are you afraid?"

"You have to ask?" Revel barely recognized his own voice.

"I can feel that you want me. Revel, I nearly died, without -- please." His head tilted back, breaking eye contact, leaving Andronikos staring at the pulse beating in his throat. "There's nothing for you to be afraid of _now_."

There ought to be plenty to be afraid of. Three days was nothing. Revel wasn't, he found, afraid the Sith would electrocute him later for taking advantage now of his weakness. What he was afraid of was far more nebulous and internal. "Maybe what scares me is how much I want to take you up on that offer." 

Kallig worked one arm out from under the coverlet and pulled Revel's head down until his lips touched against the pale flesh of the Sith's throat. "Yes." 

Revel felt the pulse under his mouth. A sound escaped him. Resisting the urge to lock his lips against the fragile skin of his Sith's neck and suck until it bruised was painful. He left a light kiss there instead. 

"I thought my scars disgusted you. But I could feel, last night, when you took care of me, none of that, only passion. Now that you are past that--"

"Huh?" Revel stood abruptly. "Your scars what? How do you figure that stupid idea?"

"When you first came on the crew, on the Fury. When you saw me naked." 

"When you threw me into a bulkhead and gave me a concussion? I remember."

"I thought you wanted me then, you came to my quarters and you-- I sensed the revulsion when you saw me." 

"That wasn't because of your scars, Sith. It was because you'd drunk half the whiskey you'd brought from Mos Ila in the half hour you were waiting for me to get 'freshed and show up. I didn't want to fuck you and be around when you regretted it after you sobered up."

Kallig closed his eyes again. "I am an idiot."

\----------------

Kallig was glad he had had those two nights with his ex-pirate. They were everything he'd fantasized about for so long. 

Better than dying without ever knowing how Revel's body felt flush against his own, skin to skin, without knowing the way it felt to be surrounded by Revel's passion as he climaxed, the way it burned and flowed and penetrated deep. The way his own climax felt when it was built up and up by Revel's skillful ministrations into something so far beyond Kallig's previous liaisons as to seem like an entirely new category of experience.

The bruises on his neck from Revel's mouth were scars he wished he could keep. Flowers that would fade and be gone with only memories left behind.

Of course, nothing more could happen after Kallig's recovery. He didn't blame Revel at all for that. It was his own fault and Revel's self-preservation. 

He wouldn't even let himself ask. Revel might think saying no would be as bad as saying yes and making a mistake. Kallig couldn't think of a way to offer without that implicit threat being present, spoken or not. He ached inside every time he heard the echo in his mind, and he heard it all the time, of those words. "When you threw me into a bulkhead and gave me a concussion? I remember." They both remembered. So there was nothing that could be done.

A part of him wished he could give up his Force powers entirely and be like they had been on Voss forever. It wasn't possible. He had too much to do, he would be unhappy powerless after probably a week, and his enemies on the Dark Council would probably have him killed just in case while they could. But it was a soothing fantasy to keep him warm when the chills went down his spine as Revel walked by heading to the engine room or stood casually in the mess area chatting with Talos.

\----------------

Revel didn't mind at all that he'd been injured in the ship battle over Rishi when it meant his Sith came and tended to his injuries personally. Kallig still had a knack for healing. It didn't take long. But every time he felt that protective caress of the powers Kallig wielded against his body it went a little way to assuaging the constant hunger he felt for his Sith's touch.

Yavin, though, was brutal. Kallig came back from that one with a new ghost in his head. Revel didn't know for sure, but he had a strong idea who it was, and why the Sith didn't admit that to anyone. They would fear him if they knew, and unlike most Sith, he didn't want that.

He was more than ever trying to be Zash Junior, though the junior part of it didn't apply anymore. Kallig had risen higher than Zash ever had. Darth Occlus the Dark Councillor of Ancient Knowledge, or whatever bantha crap the Empire spewed on him, was far too busy with all his important duties and even more important soirees to bother with the likes of a pilot and mechanic who had slipped into his crew purely by luck. 

Kallig wasn't really like that, not when they were alone, which was almost never. He was still -- who he was, under all the layers of Imperial fluff. Most of the time he took Xalek with him to fight, now. Said he had to give his apprentice battle experience. He did take Revel with him to talk to Lord Beniko and Agent Shan, though.

They were a pair. Revel respected the blonde Sith lady who didn't want to be called "Lord." She was the closest he'd seen to really being like his Sith, as they went: competent, insightful, didn't care if you used all their titles right or messed them up sometimes long as you got your job done. Wasn't looking for status bumps like the rest of the Sith always seemed to be. Lana Beniko was all right in Andronikos Revel's book.

Agent Shan was another thing entirely: SIS scum was what he was. Every one of them was going to shoot you in the back some day, and it'd be better to put a blaster bolt between their eyes before they got the chance. He'd mentioned it to Kallig, who only said that he didn't think he could protect Revel from the wrath if he killed Theron Shan. Whatever that meant. So for now, the SIS scum was still breathing.

The day to day just gave him more and more measure of what it was probably like for Casey serving in his crew after they'd split. Revel's father had always used to say you get back what you gave out. Turned out it was true. Nash had said the same, phrased another way: the Balance always gives you a chance to see the other side, he'd said, usually when Andronikos was angry and wanted to kill a guy who needed killing. Nash always tried to see the other's side of things. Revel had thought it a weakness at the time. As he got older, he didn't see it that way as much anymore.

So it had been inevitable, per Nash, that Revel would get to live through the worst day of his life, which had been the day when his Sith was on board the Dark Council's flagship conferencing with the other Darths, and the Eternal Empire cut it in half.

"Take us out of here," Xalek said, as if he was in charge. 

"We aren't leaving Occlus," Revel told him. "It might be we can pick him up out of the wreckage. Alive." 

Glancing from one of his dangerous crewmates to the other, seeing no hope of either of them bending, Talos left the bridge in a hurry. 

"I will not die here, Revel," Xalek said. "Ashara. Restrain him."

Ashara looked from Revel to Xalek. She would have looked at Talos first, but he was gone. "We have to retreat," she said at last. "It isn't cowardice, Revel. We are no use in a fight against a fleet that already took out a Terminus-class destroyer."

Revel smashed his fist into the controls. Or he would have, but Ashara used the Force to catch his fist and cushion it so it was like hitting a pillow. He knew it was Ashara. Xalek would not have been so gentle.

That was how Revel got to experience the other side of what Casey had done to him. What it was like to take his beloved's ship and leave the man behind to die. It was the Balance. Revel cursed Nash and the Balance and Ashara and mostly Xalek, and there was nothing else to be done.

\----------------

Occlus had been back in the White Room for what felt like weeks now. He and the ancient Rakata had come to terms; the Rakata did not try to take over Occlus's mind and Occlus did not try to banish the Imprisoned One from his own realm.

It was strange to imagine that this place was actually still entirely contained within Occlus himself. He knew it was true. He hadn't expected the Rakata to still be here, that was all. He had thought he could use the controls he'd put here before to reach out to those previously cured of the Rakata machine plague and call them to find him, to rescue him from whatever had happened to lock him into his own mind.

He had thought he could use them to find Revel and … anything. To find him and somehow not be separated from him any longer. 

But the moment he entered the room, he saw that its original inhabitant was still here, and that without the Imprisoned One's consent he would not be able to reach anyone. They were still trying to find their way to a truce.

Instead of attacking directly, the Imprisoned One had waited for Occlus's rare moments of inattention. If it had not been for the allies he'd gathered in his mind who had remained with him and their -- especially the last one's -- strength, Occlus might have succumbed. But he had those allies and with their help overcame every ambush and feint the remnant of the Rakata attempted.

The Imprisoned One did not want to give up any leverage. This was the only thing Occlus had wanted from the alien in all the time he'd been stuck here since the Sith took him from Tatooine. Not very long compared to the thousands of years before the Sith showed up, but the remaining time, inside a living Sith instead of an enduring obelisk, was shorter than it used to be. 

"If we remain in here together, we can do nothing. By calling to our former hands and fingers for aid, both of us gain," Occlus repeated. He had lost count of how many times he had attempted this line of reasoning. "I admit I care more whether anyone I know is still alive when I emerge. But if we allow too much time, all the people we could contact might be dead, and our window to call help will be past."

This time, he could feel the Imprisoned One bending to his persuasion. The Rakata had thought he would relent faster to consistent intransigence. By now, from sheer repetition, the alien being knew he would not. "Sooner than you know," the Imprisoned One said. "To you it may seem long, but we have been here longer than you think. Two full turns of the planet you found me on around its primary star."

It had seemed less. Had everyone given up on him, Occlus wondered. What horrors might have befallen the galaxy in that time? His apprentices might have died in the battles between the Eternal Empire and his people. He might never see Revel again

The Imprisoned One might be lying. He might think this news was what it would take to crack the Sith whose mind he had been unable to conquer. He might think that even if he were telling the truth. Occlus set his focus, refusing to give in. Even if it were ten Tatooine years, he would not set the antique Rakata free on the galaxy. Better to be lost forever.

\----------------

Kallig woke, feeling as if he emerged directly from the White Room inside his head into the shadowy cramped corner in a high-ceilinged, dusty warehouse. Familiar faces looked at his: Lana Beniko and Andronikos Revel. An astromech droid stood at Lana's side, while Revel held a squeeze bulb of some foul liquid to Kallig's lips.

"Carbonite antitoxin," Lana said in her crisp voice, pitched softer and lower than her usual. The sound was oddly muffled. Listening close, Kallig heard the low hum of a sound-suppressor field that he thought the droid must be generating.

"We are in a warehouse belonging to the ruling family of the Eternal Empire," Lana continued as Kallig sucked on the bulb of antitoxin.

Revel took Kallig's hand in his and squeezed. There was an emotion, an unfamiliar one, filling the space around them, one of those the Dark Side barely acknowledged, so intense in this case that it qualified, just, as a form of passion he could sense.

His vision was clearing. Kallig saw with a frisson of shock the pattern on the skin of Revel's throat and chest of the Rakata's plague, the dark traceries of veins reshaped to form angular circuits. Not on his face. His eyes were still human, not changed to metal like they had been when Revel was truly overcome by the disease. "This?" Revel asked, touching it with his other hand, the one not holding Kallig's. "This is how we found you."

Kallig nodded, aghast even though he'd known that was what he'd tried to do, to reach out with the Imprisoned One's latent connection, not letting it take anyone over but still sending information. It had worked; he should be pleased, not horrified at what he'd done to Revel.

"Carbonite," Revel muttered. "Those Huttspawn could have killed you." He caressed Kallig's cheek as he took the empty ampoule and replaced it with another. Kallig wondered at the uncharacteristic gesture of open affection, but it felt too good to complain about.

"Darth Occlus," Lana said, "you must be given all the antitoxin before we can move you. I should step a little way off to allow privacy for your reunion with your--" She looked from Kallig to Revel, too much the diplomat to choose a word for their never-publicly-admitted relationship.

Of course she would think they were lovers at the very least, simply from watching them for the last couple of minutes. Kallig tried to begin to correct this mistaken impression. "No, he's not--" A flare of anger from Revel stopped his words.

"You said something about giving us space?" Revel said to Lana. "Could use it."

"Don't allow yourself to be distracted. I believe there may be other allies here for my mission. While I search, do what you must. Be brief and keep your mind on our _important_ task." Lana was clearly focused on something she cared personally about. Her passionate determination surrounded her in tight array as Kallig could see. He watched her make her way out of sight around stacked crates, the droid following. The sound suppression was still audible and kept him from hearing where Lana had gone once she was out of sight.

"Huh." A muttered, vicious monosyllable from Revel. "His Dark Eminence, former Dark Council member Darth Occlus is above admitting intimacy with Galactic pirate scum like me," Revel said, his voice not much above a whisper, barely audible within the sound suppression field. 

Revel caught Kallig's eyes with a burning gaze. "That's what you let everyone think, even me til you hooked me up to your head and showed me what's in there." 

"I never said that. I never even thought that." He wanted to be Occlus, but he was inescapably only Kallig. Occlus would be amused by this confrontation, Revel's emotional distortion of the proper respect and distance of a Dark Councillor for his loyal retainer. Kallig couldn't be. Not with Revel right there, holding his hand, burning with anger and passion and somehow fearless despite their apparent position in the heart of enemy territory with no hope of support.

"What you thought was that you might hurt me again. Told yourself you'd lose it and lash out and break me bad enough that I'd hate you." Revel took a breath as if the half-whispered words had winded him. 

Kallig was about to say something, not sure if it would have been agreement or argument, when another bulb of antitoxin kept him from speaking. Revel's fingers were gentle placing it at his lips. Too gentle for the words he was still saying.

"You know what? It isn't my Sith telling himself that. It's someone inside his head. You've got a lot of ghosts in there. This's got to be the oldest one." Revel leaned close and said a name he shouldn't know: Kallig's former name as a slave. 

No one was allowed to call him that. Kallig's anger flared, crackling force lightning between his fingers, over his torso. Revel held onto his hand through it, seeming to feel nothing. Kallig sensed no fear at all from him and waning anger. The empty bulb of antitoxin fell from his mouth.

"That is not--" Kallig forced out between his teeth.

"See? Look how angry you just got. But did you hurt me? Did you even push me away?" Revel scoffed. "You've come a long way since then. There's still risk. But it won't be _that_."

Kallig closed his eyes. "You can't know that. Not for certain."

Revel went on as if Kallig hadn't spoken. "The real reason you shut me out is fear. Of power." 

That made no sense. Kallig had always pursued power, often recklessly, and he had achieved great power, far beyond his early expectations of himself. 

"Not of bossing-people-around power, not of Dark Council power. Not even of using-the-Force-to-kill-his-enemies power. You're afraid of your own… I don't even know. The dark side Sith thing. Your own -- passion." Revel scowled, but it was somehow not what it looked like. 

"I'm not going to let you do that anymore," Revel said. His voice had smoothed out, no longer half-whispered. It sounded loud by contrast, though Kallig could tell that it did not penetrate to wherever Lana was, not through the sonic disruption field. "You're my Sith. I'd say like it or not, but with this," he thumped his chest over the tracings of the Rakata virus, "I know you like it. I know what you feel." He squeezed Kallig's hand, then pressed his lips to the corner of Kallig's jaw. "You won't stop me. You won't hurt me. You love me and I know it."

"It's not--"

"It's not safe? It's not fair? You know what's not safe? Every single thing about our lives, every day in the galaxy that we fight together. We don't look for safe, Sith. You know what's not fair? That all that time after those two nights on Voss you let me believe you didn't want me anymore. That you'd never felt the way you do about me, that you'd only wanted to find out what you'd missed and that was enough. You knew what _I_ felt, Force sensed it. And you just. That, Sith, that's what wasn't fair." A smile broke across Revel's face. "And I don't care. Fair isn't what it's about any more than safe is. I'm just glad now I get to do this."

Kallig sucked on the last squeeze tube of antitoxin as he did not even try to stop Revel from pulling aside the cloth that covered his chest and stroking the skin beneath. 

"When we get out of here, we have to help Beniko save her Commander next," Revel said. "I told her I was sure you could do it. It won't be easy. Where her Commander is at -- she's in the palace itself. Because, they say, she assassinated Valkorion." 

Kallig tried to take in this news. When he'd been rescued from the capital ship wreckage and put into carbonite, the last he'd known was that Marr and some infamous Republic civilian had been on their way to meet and parley with Valkorion's son.

Speculation evaporated as he let himself relax and acquiesce to the new reality. The Empire might have fallen, but he had Revel back. It should not have seemed such a fine bargain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: [Night Falling Fast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19949860)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dust in the Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814479) by [wyvernwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernwood/pseuds/wyvernwood)
  * [starmap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228407) by [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai)




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